Reading Recommendations - February 2026 wrap up
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Mid-March means it's time for my "Reading Recommendations" - February 2026
Another month of great reading! I post my weekly reading recs on Facebook and Instagram first so follow me there to see them as they go live. To receive my monthly recap before anyone else, subscribe to my monthly newsletter where you'll find a link to the recap plus an exclusive, subscribers only, article.
༄˖°.☕️.ೃ࿔📚*:･
The Secret Book Society by Madeline Martin
Genre: Historical Fiction
(originally reviewed 4 February)
London 1895. Trapped by oppressive marriages and societal expectations, three women receive a mysterious invitation to an afternoon tea at the home of the reclusive Lady Duxbury. Beneath the genteel façade of the gathering lies a secret book club – a sanctuary where they can discover freedom, sisterhood and the courage to rewrite their stories.
The Secret Book Society is a complex story interwoven with the common restrictive social rules of the time, the links between power and control, friendship, and the opportunities that women may have sought to gain freedom from their oppression. It starts with books, the widening of horizons, the recognition of other women (fictional and real) in similar situations, and the knowledge that the female authors whose work they read were able to step outside of the role’s society had for them.
This is not a story about mean men. There are a few horrendous females here as well. It’s not even a story about books and book club. It is a story about oppression, domestic violence, discrimination, mental health, the early development of women’s rights and the bridges books build on the path to education, friendship, connection, and hope. The books the women read throughout form the foundation from which they can understand themselves, their family and their lives, and move toward something better, something stronger.
• Good strong writing about women in Victorian society
• Nicely paced storytelling with each character having their own recognisable voice
• The importance placed on reading and literature in the subjugation of women
• each of the characters were caught in a different way and each found strength through friendship
• Throwing light on the subversive ways women used to stretch their wings and to communicate with each other
• Also, hat-pin fighting.
I’m told that if readers loved The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner (read my review), then they’ll enjoy The Secret Book Society by Madeline Martin too, and I have to say, that they’re right. I did on both counts.
You Don’t Know Me by Sara Foster
Genre: Thriller
(originally reviewed 19 February)
Lizzie Burdett was eighteen when she vanished, and Noah Carruso has never forgotten her. She was his first crush, his unrequited love. She was also his brother’s girlfriend. Tom Carruso hasn’t been home in over a decade. He left soon after Lizzie disappeared, under a darkening cloud of suspicion, and now he’s back for the inquest into Lizzie’s death – intent on telling his side of the story.
As the inquest looms, Noah meets Alice Pryce on holiday. They fall for each other fast and hard, but Noah can’t bear to tell Alice his deepest fears. And Alice is equally stricken – she carries a terrible secret of her own.
Is the truth worth telling if it will destroy everything?
I love a good crime mystery set in Australia, especially in Sydney where I’m from. I have to admit to almost not reading this one. It sat on my “to be read” pile quite a while and I was going to pass it on. Luckily, I didn’t because I really enjoyed Sara Foster’s writing. It’s easy to read while maintaining a gripping pace throughout. The dramatic opening hints at the layers of mystery to come.
What I liked:
Excellent storytelling that leads us from the first incident and its impacts and into a separate crime.
The family dramas that sit side by side mesh through the meeting of Tom and Alice and their confrontation with their own truths.
Great characterisation: each character show us glimpses of their inner turmoil without us becoming mired in despair, and the twists and turns in their relationships are only matched by the grand twist at the end.
Certainly, compelling and I highly recommend it.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny By Kiran Desai
Genre: Literary Fiction
(originally reviewed 25 February)
“A spellbinding story of two young people whose fates intersect and diverge across continents and years – an epic of love and family, India and America, tradition and modernity” ~ Emily Facoory, New York Times.
I went through most of this novel bemused at the seeming chaos of the characters. Yet each page turned, kept me hooked. It’s far more than a love story. It’s two people caught in the void between east and west, contemporary society and traditional, and finding that the line between these worlds is both wavering and solid and sometimes (many times) the line is non-existent.
Sonia and Sunny are each sent to the USA to study and broaden their lives. At the same time, their parents bemoan the loss of family values this action seems to bring. The two individuals have trouble finding their way inside a culture completely different to their Indian upbringings. They use books and writing as a way to navigate not just this displacement but also the inevitable separation from their traditional parents. The parents themselves struggle with similar issues. They are modern yet have the teachings of their own upbringing to reconcile with.
Throughout this story, Sonia and Sunny, grow and develop their understanding of themselves, others and themselves in relation to others. They are not mirrors reflecting the expectations and desires of their lovers, family and friends. They are two souls looking for meaning in their lives, searching for their role in life. Sonia fears that she’s cursed. Sunny yearns for connection but never quite seems to pull it off.
This novel has been called an epic and it certainly is. It’s not just the growth of the two main characters but also their parents. The relationship between child and parent forms the chaos in the story. Letting go and not wanting to let go, feeling they are being left behind, abandoned by the very children they want to push out of restrictive traditional lives, almost tears them apart.
The intergenerational twists and turns kept me reading all the way, enjoying it with each new shift in story and viewpoint.
༄˖°.☕️.ೃ࿔📚*:･
Reading recommendations - February 2026 brought to you by my love of reading books and writing about them.
